Yellow & Blue Make . . . . .

 . . . A really fun mess!

We tried finger painting for the first time a few months ago, but discovered that Malcolm mostly tried to eat the paints.  So we put such explorations on hold, until recently.

In an attempt to convince Malcolm that we did not put him the bath to torture him (an erroneous belief of which he was, until recently, entirely convinced!), we decided to put him in the empty tub with some finger paints.  

Yellow and blue, to be specific.  Well!  Turns out this is more fun then sneezing!  (Also a Malcolm favorite!)  As you can see by the picture, he quickly discovered that mixing them together would produce green.  And that green paint could go all sorts of fun places!

The best thing to do with green paint turned out to be smearing it thickly on his hands, then clapping in delight!  If you look carefully at the first picture, you'll see the excellent paint splatter all over his face (and mine, and Matthew's, and the bathroom floor, and walls, and ceiling . . . )

Well, when green turned out to be such fun, we had to add some more colors!  He mixed and explored to his heart's content. And our delight!

He decided that his hair could use a bit of conditioning, so gave himself a "purple rinse."  The best part of it - while he rubbed paint into his hair, he kept saying "Nice, Nice!"  He learned this phrase long ago.  After bathtime, we rub oil into his hair and scalp (more on Black hair care in a later post).  At first he would wiggle and struggle to get away, until we started letting him put the oil in his own hair, and wield the comb/brush himself.  He loved that!  He'd oil his hair, brush it, then pat it, saying "Nice, Nice!" We always tell him how handsome he is, and how nice his hair is.  I guess he latched onto the phrase! 

So, there he was, rubbing in the paint, "Nice, Nice!"

To finish off the grand adventure, we celebrated with a few High-Fives!

Hooray for our little Picasso!